Landrieu Administration has repaired 23,000 streetlight outages since May 2010

January 08, 2013

EW ORLEANS, LA—Today, the City of New Orleans provided a status update on ongoing repairs to the City’s streetlight system. In total, the City of New Orleans owns over 50,000 streetlights. This number includes streetlights on Interstate highways and State roads. Since the Landrieu Administration took office in May 2010, the City has repaired over 23,000 streetlights. Many of these outages are due to the streetlight system being outdated, damaged during Hurricanes Katrina or Isaac, or from theft of essential components like electrical conduits and copper wiring.

In May 2012, the City committed to fixing the backlog of 10,917 broken streetlights at that time by the end of 2012. To pursue this initiative, the City dedicated $8 million in one-time federal recovery dollars to pay for these repairs. To increase capacity, the Department of Public Works (DPW) increased the streetlight repair crews from 3 crews working five days a week, 8 per day to 22 crews working six days a week, 13 hours per day. By the end of 2012, the City delivered on this commitment by repairing 12,753 streetlights.

“The City of New Orleans is committed to fixing every streetlight in the city,” Mayor Landrieu said. “This continues to be a real priority we all share, as streetlights enhance public safety and the sense of security in our neighborhoods. Our city’s streetlight system is outdated and in need of serious repairs. But more importantly, we need to begin looking at a long-term solution to maintaining our city’s aging streetlight infrastructure.”

Because streetlights are continually burning out, a total of 8,080 outages presently exist as of the beginning of 2013. Of these outages, about 2,000 were damaged during Hurricane Isaac. Twenty contractor maintenance crews are currently working on over 1,500 of these reported outages.

There are 15 types of streetlight fixtures, 19 types of poles, 6 types of lamps, and 15 types of bulb wattages. Poles range in price from approximately $2,000 to $10,000 and fixtures range from $400 to $1,500.

Outages are identified during nightly patrols by program management contractors and reports from residents to the NOLA 3-1-1 system.

Residents are encouraged to report any streetlight outages by calling 3-1-1 during business hours.